The Athletic
We are excited to share that Bedrock has co-led a $40M Series C financing round in The Athletic alongside our friends at Founders Fund.
I first met The Athletic founders, Alex and Adam, during Y Combinator in 2016. At the time, their plan to create a subscription for local sports writing was particularly audacious.
The popular narrative was that readers simply weren’t willing to pay for written content online. The only way to win as a media company was to build an engine that output a high-volume of free clickbait articles to social platforms, monetized through ads. Paywalls wouldn’t scale, and companies that used them were destined to be niche.
From Day One, the company held the exact opposite view — that building a base of loyal paid subscribers would become a key advantage to unlocking massive scale. They focused exclusively on paid subscriptions, with an emphasis on quality local writers and an elevated experience. No ads or clickbait.
In executing on this strategy, Alex and Adam pioneered a new model for online media.
Over the past two years we’ve seen the power of this model. Subscription has built a virtuous cycle between The Athletic subscribers and the sports writing they love.
Subscriber growth has attracted more great writers. Within the past year, The Athletic has grown its editorial team from 65 writers in 10 markets to more than 275 full-time writers in 47 markets. They have hired industry-leading voices like Jayson Stark, Seth Davis, and Jay Glazer.
Quality writing has in turn attracted new subscribers, and helped retain existing ones. We’ve met with many promising subscription businesses, but have never seen subscription retention metrics comparable to The Athletic. Subscribers love the content and read it every day, providing a strong base for future growth.
We believe The Athletic is a one-of-a-kind company. They’ve consistently violated the popular narrative to achieve greater success than most think possible, and we expect that trend to continue. We’re thrilled to be their partners on that journey.
